Chicago police question 2 in fatal nightclub shooting

Charges are not expected until at least Tuesday

Chicago police investigating the weekend's deadly Cafe Allure shooting were interviewing two suspects Monday afternoon, but charges were not expected until at least Tuesday, said a source familiar with the investigation.

Police were holding "two persons of interest" at the Belmont Area headquarters but were conducting interviews with witnesses and putting the suspects in lineups, the source said.

The popular nightclub at 1501 N. Dayton St. was still crowded when the gunmen opened fire at the front door, killing two men, gravely wounding a third and injuring four others. After the 3 a.m. shooting, police took dozens of people to Belmont Area headquarters for interviews. Some of them were held overnight.

A Cafe Allure bartender was held until Monday afternoon, said police and his relatives. Officers at the Belmont District lockup confirmed late Monday afternoon that he recently had been released, and they characterized him as a witness.

The gunmen were believed to have been part of a group that had attended a private birthday party on the second floor of the club. Because of the connection to a scheduled private party, authorities have been confident from the start that they would be able to identify the suspects.

But sorting through witness accounts of the shooting has been complicated, police said.

A group who had been at the birthday party upstairs started the violence when bouncer Timothy McClellan refused to let them back inside because the club was closing, police spokesman David Bayless said.

At least one of the men at the front door pulled a semiautomatic handgun and began firing, fatally wounding McClellan, 34, and shooting another bouncer, Eugene Walker, 24, in the back of the head. Walker was in critical condition and on life-support at Northwestern Memorial Hospital Monday.

The gunman then reached across the front door threshold and fired 13 to 15 rounds, hitting seven people. The body of Tyrone Bonner, 24, was found lying next to a car outside.

At some point, a melee erupted inside the club, with bottles and glass ashtrays being hurled. Police believe the confrontation between the gunmen and bouncers was the instigation.

Immediately after the shooting, Maggie Williamson, a club patron, said she and many others were asked to go to the police station at Belmont and Western Avenues.

The witnesses were put in a large room together, and police asked anyone with drugs or weapons to surrender them, Williamson said.

Williamson and another witness, disc jockey Jeff Norwood, said police had promised not to arrest people for minor offenses. But Williamson said she was arrested when she surrendered a bag of marijuana.

"I gave [police] the bags of weed, and they ended up locking me up. They locked me up and brought a gun in and said, did I see this gun before," Williamson said. She said they kept her at the station until Saturday night and charged her with marijuana possession. She said others were charged with possession as well.

"We voluntarily went there, and they forcibly held us ... until Saturday night," Williamson said.